Thursday morning, it's still raining and Regina is still ill. Deja vu. After some thinking she decided to stay the morning in the hotel. Fortunately we planned to have the afternoon for us. Stephan got a pick up by Lilly at 9:30 from the hotel for a walk to the black dragon pond. The park is known for the nice view to the jade dragon mountain....
At the entrance of the part the first surprise: the Lions have not gender difference. Usually the right lion is the male with the (earth-) ball under his prank and the left one is the female with the baby. Here is really nothing to be found under the pranks. So difference from the Chinese Han culture.
The park itself looks not too different to a Suzhou garden. Everything is pretty nice arrange and we're sure, everything has its own meaning.
Then the grandious, impressive sight of the dragon snow mountain. At least we were told, that it's there, inside of the fog. Well, we're not really sure, if there is a mountain at all. But some of the people brought a n eagle to have an alternative motif.
As expected in a chines park, there is also a temple. The handrail is filled with thousands of padlocks. Each of them engraved with wishes. The longer the lock stays at the temple, the higher is the chance to get the wish granted. If you believe, what the Chinese believes....
Arriving the bridge over the pond, the weather gave a vague impression how it could have been, seeing the mountain.
Obviously we haven't been alone in the park. But it was really nice to see that many children. The minorities in China are not forced tot eh one child policy. And the farer away from Beijing, the cheaper the fees for extra kids if you're not part of a minority. Well, Beijing is really far away.
The "Hybrid house", combining 4 different styles, is the ultimate tourist test for Lijiang. Here the solution: the base form is Han Chinese, the roof style is Tibetan, the black and white drawings from the Naxi and the color variety is from the Bai. Sure, you all would have passed the test, won't you? And as we are in the country of the Naxi people, a Dongba is not to be missed. He's telling stories and paints calligraphies if you pay him.
The water of the rivers and lakes originates directly from the glaciers of the (probably existing) jade snow mountain and is as clear as glass. In the middle of the park is the pearl pond. Oxygen bubbles are rising when you stamp your feet or if you're screaming very loud. First try of the Chinese is screaming by the way.....
Next stop was the Naxi / Dongba museum. Lilly, the guide, organized a Naxi woman for the tour, she said, only a Naxi can explain the Naxi culture.
Ok, now some lessons in Naxi history: In the ancient time, as earth and heaven was created, the nine brother and seven sisters of the Naxi were meeting with the wise men and the magicians and decided, to the build Jade Dragon Snow Mountain to protect the earth and to be near to the heaven. During the meeting the Naxi understood that mankind and nature are brothers and that the Naxi, the Bai and the Tibetans have the same ancestors. That's it, nature has to be respected and protected and there shouldn't be any wars between the Bai, the Naxi and the Tibetans. Since this time, the seven and the nine are the lucky numbers.
Stephan managed to take a photograph of a photograph, how the mountain looks like, if there's no fog. Who knows, I trust nobody, just rumors.
In the model landscape it's nice to see, that in each of the three valleys on the right side there is a river. Well, we're talking about the Yangtze, the Mekong and the Saluen. China, Vietnam and Burma. The 3 most famous rivers in Asia.
There are plenty of exponents in the museum, e.g. the fortuneteller disk, used by the Dongba to explore the future. The Dongbas are also responsible for the art. the example for the capability is a root with 100 birds carved in.
We bought only two books before we headed back to the old town of Lijiang.
There we watched the favorite occupations of the kids: playing and eating.
Then the hike started. Only a little bit upstairs, maybe 50 stairs to the Wangolu Pagoda. Unbelievable, stairs again. But it's worth each single step.
600 stairs later we arrived at the Pagoda. It's still a temple where you can ignite your devotions. Sight seeing platform is in the top floor.
The view over the 1 million people village is pretty nice because the hill is in the middle of the town. If now the weather.....
The mountain with the triangle top is called the brush mountain, because it's the exact shape of a calligraphy brush. And as you see. Lilly was always busy, if not with answering stupid questions then with making phone calls.
At the bottom of the Pagoda we found some roses, quite untypically for Yunnan. But as you see with the tree in the middle of the stair the Naxi are living in harmony with the nature. If there is a tree the stairs are build around it. No problem.
Just during walking down the stairs the weather change. Nearly real blue sky, a little bit sun shine and once again no view of the snow mountains. But still much better than rain.
All day things like washing hairs or selling furs are not really interesting after some days in Yunnan. Horses? They're everywhere and preparing the meat for lunch in front of the pottery shop is also quite normal, or? Maybe we're already too long in China.
We picked up Regina for a late lunch and she's really better now. Maybe because of the medicine from the pharmacy? We took a nice walk through the ancient town, did some shopping and hide before the rain in a small coffee.
Gina is healthy again, yiihaaa. The ride to the Shangri La and the stop over at the tiger leaping gorge is a completely story......
Lampshades...
...made of paper are an famous export article from Yunnan.
We bought our part to help the economy of Yunnan...
